Sunday, April 15, 2012

Sheriff Doug Gillespie rode with Cliven Bundy in his weathered, white
pickup down a bumpy trail on the outskirts of Bunkerville. They chatted
about the Bureau of Land Management's plans to round up the rancher's
cattle.
The sheriff agreed to disagree with the 65-year-old rancher's
suggestion of what he should do as Clark County's elected law enforcer
to keep federal land managers from "stealing" his cattle.
"These are federal lands. They can do what they want to do,"
Gillespie recalled telling Bundy during the April 6 tour of the Gold
Butte range, 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas. "I use my influence to
make sure whatever is done is done by the law and, No. 2, it is done
peacefully."
Then and now, Bundy remains steadfast in his intention to resist
government efforts to round up his cattle from rangeland where his
family has lived since 1877.
The BLM had canceled Bundy's permit for the Bunker­ville allotment in
1994. But he continued to let his cattle graze on the vast, sage-dotted
landscape -- without paying the $2-per-head-per-month fee and in
violation of a federal court order that he remove his herd to preserve
the habitat for the federally protected desert tortoise.
So, the BLM finally hired cowboys and planned a helicopter-assisted
roundup last week to remove his herd -- anywhere from 500 to 900 head of
cattle depending on who's counting.
The BLM's last-minute decision to divert its roundup plans, at least
for now, to pursue another legal avenue raises questions about how one
man's resistance to the bureau's rules will affect other ranchers in the
West.
This could signal the resurgence of the Sagebrush Rebellion, a
homegrown state's rights movement against federal land ownership that
swept across rural Nevada and surrounding states in the 1980s.
LONG-SIMMERING FEUD
Bundy didn't mince words when he put the BLM contractor on notice about the cattle gather that was supposed to begin Wednesday.
"There is a volatile situation currently taking place," Bundy wrote
to Cattoor Livestock Roundup Inc. "Cliven Bundy will do whatever it
takes to protect his property and rights and liberty and freedoms of
those of, We the People, of Clark County Nevada."
His threat seemed to have worked, at least for the time being. The
BLM blinked when officials in Washington, D.C., decided late Tuesday to
suspend the roundup indefinitely because of safety concerns for people
involved.
That disappointed BLM Southern Nevada District Manager Mary Jo
Rugwell. She and her staff had spent months plotting the roundup and
coordinating with BLM rangers, a special bureau agent for the Southwest
region and the sheriff's staff and officers who work out of the area's
rural substation.
The FBI even sent a representative to listen in, Gillespie said.
After all, they didn't want the long-simmering feud over grazing
rights to boil over into a deadly confrontation like what occurred at
the Weaver Ranch in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, that left two family members and
one federal marshal dead in 1992. Or, like the standoff in Waco, Texas,
that ended on April 19, 1993, when federal agents besieged cult leader
David Koresh's Branch Davidian ranch, ending in a fiery assault that
killed 76 people.
"Nobody wants this to turn into a confrontation where violence would
occur," Gillespie said. "Mr. Bundy doesn't want that and neither does
the BLM."
While he's not concerned that Bundy or his family would resort to
violence, the sheriff said, the situation is complicated and emotions
run high.
"I always get nervous when people come to support a cause on one side
or the other. Whether on the environmental side or the cattle rancher
side, we have to do our best to mitigate those situations from
occurring," the sheriff said.
Gillespie's advice to the BLM was to revisit legal avenues for
dealing with the disgruntled rancher. He said he felt uncomfortable
trying to be the peacemaker after the 1998 court order that federal land
managers were trying to enforce had withered with time.
"Those court documents are old," Gillespie said. "I ask them to take
that back to court and address the issue. Then, OK, if he continues to
trespass, then you seize the cattle.
"In my conversations with the BLM from their legal standpoint, I see
it as a case of 'could you, should you.' Could you? Yes. Should you? No.
Cattle does not trump human life."
CATTLE'S IMPACT
Rugwell made removing Bundy's cattle one of her priorities when she
took the reins of the local BLM office in 2008. In the early 1990s when
he was still paying grazing fees, the herd on his 158,666-acre
Bunkerville allotment was capped at 150 head. About 10,486 acres of the
allotment was on National Park Service lands along the tip of Lake
Mead's Overton arm.
After his grazing permit was canceled in 1994, the herd grew and some cattle migrated to far reaches of the Gold Butte area.
Last week, Bundy estimated his adult cattle numbered about 500 in what the BLM describes as the 500,000-acre Gold Butte area.
Rugwell said her staff in December began planning for the roundup but
the cattle's impact on the landscape was getting out of hand, causing
considerable damage to natural resources even though Bundy had been
diligent in maintaining some 30 spring-fed water systems in the area.
"We really didn't know how big the problem was until we started doing
counts last year. There were as high as 900 (cattle) out there,"
Rugwell said Thursday.
Subsequent counts in August tallied 730 cattle, and the latest one
this month turned up 750. That doesn't include strays that had wandered
over the state line to Pakoon Springs, Ariz.
Rugwell had set a target of early to mid-April for the roundup because conditions would be right for it.
"We were making sure that it's not too hot, because there would be
less stress on cattle and people. That's the reason for the timing," she
said.
Rugwell notified Bundy in an April 3 letter about his cattle
trespassing on public lands. She informed him they would be rounded up
and impounded because the herd had been roaming for 18 years "without
authorization in areas that are closed to grazing" in violation of the
1998 federal court injunction.
The letter said Bundy would be contacted after all the cattle had
been gathered and he would be allowed to claim any that bear his brand.
"In my mind, the most important issue with respect to trespass is the
fact trespass is unfair to other users, like recreationists. They pay
fees and follow rules. In my mind it's a fairness issue," she said
Wednesday after the roundup had been suspended indefinitely.
THE LEGAL ISSUE
Cases like Bundy's have been tried before in the courts, and county
sheriffs in Nevada, California and Idaho have had varying degrees of
support for ranchers and their causes.
But Bret Birdsong, a professor at the Boyd School of Law at the
University of Nevada, Las Vegas and an expert on public land and natural
resources litigation, said Bundy's legal arguments that federal rangers
and BLM staff have no jurisdiction over the federal lands he uses for
ranching "are based on interpretation of the Constitution which has been
debunked by the Supreme Court for many years."
"That is clearly not the law," he said.
Bundy contends the limitless authority that the federal government
had over the territory evaporated when Nevada became a state in 1864.
However, Birdsong said the BLM still has power to enforce laws on
public land and to seize cattle through a court order or even by
administrative action.
"I don't see personally why they couldn't go back to court to seek
enforcement of the injunction," Birdsong said. "The idea that the
sheriff should come to his defense seems just wrong."
Bundy appealed the U.S. District Court ruling, and the 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the injunction against him in a 1999
order.
However, there is concurrent jurisdiction between the BLM and the sheriff with enforcing laws on federal land.
"If someone steals your car while you're camping at Gold Butte that
would be enforceable under state law," he said. "But if the state passes
a law that allows grazing on federal land, and federal law says you
can't, then federal law prevails where there's a conflict."
Birdsong points to a 1997 cattle trespass case in Northern Nevada
that stands as a precedent for legal action by the BLM over Bundy's
continued effort to run cattle where grazing is prohibited in Gold
Butte.
In the 1997 case, Clifford Gardner was charged with trespass by the
U.S. Forest Service for letting cattle from his Dawley Creek Ranch roam
part of the Humboldt National Forest that had been ravaged by a
wildfire. Although Gardner and his wife, Bertha, had a permit to graze
there, the Forest Service had reseeded the burn area and closed it to
grazing for two years.
Gardner violated the order by sending his cattle in and was fined for
trespassing. He was sued by the Forest Service after refusing to pay
the fine, arguing that the federal government didn't have title to the
land so he couldn't be in trespass.
The 9th Circuit, however, held that the United States, not Nevada,
owns public lands in the state and that they have power to regulate
grazing under the Constitution's property clause.
PUBLIC LANDS, PRIVATE RIGHTS
The U.S. government's authority over public land is far-reaching; its
agencies hold 87 percent of the land in Nevada. The BLM alone manages
more than 47 million acres including about half of the land in Clark
County, or roughly 2.7 million of the county's 5.1 million acres.
Reno resident Ramona Morrison, daughter of the late Sagebrush
Rebellion icon Wayne Hage, said she is closely following the Bundy-BLM
feud as a member of the Nevada Agriculture Board.
"We need to be sure due process of law is being followed and state
law is being followed and the BLM is not conducting a rogue police
operation," she said.
Her father battled the federal government for decades over public
lands and private property rights after the Forest Service greatly
reduced the number of cattle he could graze. Hage sued the agency for
harassment and prevailed in 2002 when a judge ruled he had a right to
graze cattle and use springs on federal land north of Tonopah.
But others argue that federal agencies aren't doing enough to protect public lands from overgrazing.
The Center for Biological Diversity is contemplating suing the BLM
for dragging its feet on the roundup, noting the county bought up the
grazing rights in 1998 and retired them to benefit its Multiple Species
Habitat Conservation Plan, considered a model for allowing development
and sensitive ecosystems to coexist.
"On the ground, even though good intentions have been made, nothing
is different than before," said Rob Mrowka, a spokesman for the
environmental watchdogs.
Greta Anderson, deputy director of the Western Watersheds Project, a
nonprofit conservation group, said the BLM needs to follow through on
its roundup instead of knuckling under to Bundy's threats of resistance.
"They have all the legal authority in the world but not the political will."
Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

The decision that this week halted the government-threatened roundup
of hundreds of cattle owned by Bunkerville rancher Cliven Bundy from
Gold Butte southwest of Mesquite came from the highest level of the
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Washington, D.C.The
cattle that for years have been the focus of an intense dispute between
Bundy and the BLM were scheduled to be corralled and taken off the land
Wednesday by “contract cowboys,” Cattoor Livestock Roundup Inc., Bundy
told the Desert Valley Times.
Bundy said he learned weeks
ago that his long-standing disagreement with the BLM over the cattle was
once again coming to a head after simmering with little or no action
for years.
“I had been working with the sheriff (Clark
County Sheriff Doug Gillespie) for about six weeks and I was aware
things were changing,” Bundy said.
During a recent
personal visit from Gillespie at his ranch, the 65-year-old Bundy said
he learned the government intended to enforce this week an impound
notice that had been issued July 26, 2011.
Bundy and family
members immediately began notifying and contacting various friends,
groups and others sensitive to his position about the land and proposed
roundup. He also notified the Cattoors, the County Commission and the
sheriff that he intended to hold them liable for all of his cattle and
equipment.
In the notice, the rancher said there was a “volatile situation currently taking place.
“Cliven
Bundy will do whatever it takes to protect his property and rights and
liberty and freedoms and those of We the People of Clark County Nevada,”
Bundy wrote.
Within 24 hours Bundy said he received a
call from Gillespie who informed him the roundup had been cancelled, “it
was not going to happen.”
“He told me he’d received a call
from Washington, D.C. that said, ‘We’re not going to take Bundy’s
livestock tomorrow,’” Bundy said. “He told me to go ahead and get to
ranchin’.”
BLM Southern Nevada District Manager Mary Jo
Rugwell told the DVT late Thursday that she didn’t know who had
contacted Gillespie, but an email she had personally received rescinding
the roundup was from BLM Deputy Director Mike Pool.

Rob Mrowka, Nevada conservation advocate for the Center for
Biological Diversity, a non-profit environmental group actively involved
in Gold Butte, said he believes the cancellation came at least from BLM
Director Robert Abbey, “probably higher.”
It matters
little today who ordered the cancellation since the disagreement over
the land, who is the proper steward and other contentious matters are
still ongoing.
“Our goal has always been to get the cattle
off the land peacefully, safely,” Rugwell said. “Really, the last thing
we wanted to do was an impoundment. An impoundment is a serious matter.
“We
have been asking for years that Cliven Bundy remove the cattle
himself,” she continued. “I have always hoped Mr. Bundy would do it
himself willingly. As it is we will continue to work through the
solicitor general’s office put a legal case together to take to federal
district court.”
Basically, the Bundy/BLM feud started in
the early 1990s, Bundy said, over land he calls the “Bundy Ranch,”
property in the Gold Butte area, a vast area of critical environmental
concern.
Bundy maintains because Nevada is a sovereign
state that has empowered individual counties with authority over land in
those counties, Clark County, not the BLM is the real landlord of the
property in question.
“The federal government has no jurisdiction over that land,” he said.
Because
of this belief in country jurisdiction, Bundy said he refused to sign
or pay for a grazing permit to run his cattle on the land in question.
His allotment permit, which was located on the massive Bunkerville
Allotment, was then cancelled.
After years of litigation
and an appeal to the 9th Circuit Court, it was ruled that Bundy and his
cattle were trespassing and in violation of federal rulings and he was
ordered to remove his cattle from the land.
Additionally,
in 1998 Clark County purchased grazing rights to entire Bunkerville
Allotment for almost $400,000 from the remaining permitees for the
benefit and protection of the desert tortoise.
The belief is, according to Mrowka, that the cattle eat the forage
the desert tortoise, “and other threatened or endangered species,” need
to survive.
Nevertheless, Bundy cites “pre-emptive” rights
to the forage, water and access, which he says he owns because they were
established through use by his forefathers who began running cattle in
the area in 1870s.
For now, the argument over the cattle has been put back into the pot to continue simmering.
Bundy, too, is continuing to simmer.
“Cliven
Bundy has fought for the rights of the citizens of Mesquite and Virgin
Valley for all his life,” Bundy said to the DVT. “I have never put up a
no hunting or no trespassing sign on my ranch. I have never complained
or harassed anybody for any off road use. I have never hindered any
hunter or recreational pleasure use.
“I have always stood
up and defended your right to access this land,” he said. “I have fought
in many public meetings for your right to commerce. I fought for the
City of Mesquite to keep from having to pay mitigation for the desert
tortoise and multi species act.
“Now the city has climbed
in bed with people like the Friends of Gold Butte and other
environmental organizations and they’re the people that have pressed the
federal government and brought this problem down on Cliven Bundy today.
“I will do whatever it takes to protect We the People rights on this Clark County land,” he said.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

For the third time in recent weeks, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has had one of its partners abandon an agreement that was meant to bring more collaboration to the troubled effort to reintroduce Mexican gray wolves to the Southwest.

While it's no secret the effort has been a point of contention among ranchers and environmentalists, one federal official says there will undoubtedly be a loss of perspective with fewer partners at the table.

"We like to have that collaboration and that kind of thought process that leads to better decisions," said Wally Murphy, supervisor of the Fish and Wildlife Service's ecological services field office in New Mexico.

Murphy called the recent developments "disheartening," given that the wolf program is facing critical decisions this year that will affect its future direction. The Fish and Wildlife Service is working on revamping the wolf recovery plan, which, among other things, will spell out what it will take to eventually get the animal off the federal endangered species list.

"We really need all of our partners in that decision-making process," he said.
Several counties, state agencies and tribal governments in Arizona and New Mexico had signed on to a memorandum of understanding in 2010. The purpose was to provide a framework of collaboration in hopes of balancing the program's goals of returning wolves to the wild with pressures on ranchers, their livestock and other wildlife.
Now, the Arizona Game and Fish Department, the White Mountain Apache Tribe and three Arizona counties — Greenlee, Navajo and Graham — are the only remaining partners aside from federal land and wildlife management agencies.
The exodus started last summer with the New Mexico Game and Fish Department. In late March, Grant and Sierra counties abandoned the agreement, and the New Mexico Department of Agriculture joined them earlier this week.
Caren Cowen, executive director of the New Mexico Cattle Grower's Association, said the withdrawal is "indicative of how far awry the process is with people on the ground."
"There just doesn't seem to be any headway being made and input hasn't made a difference," she said.
Sierra County Manager Janet Porter Carrejo said residents were concerned that millions of dollars have been spent on the program since 2003 without much return. She also said residents feel the federal government hasn't been forthcoming with information about how many wolves are in the wild.
The Fish and Wildlife Service's most recent survey, completed in January, puts the wolf population in New Mexico and Arizona at about 58.
Captive-bred wolves were first released in Arizona in 1998 as part of the reintroduction effort. Biologists hoped to have at least 100 in the Blue Range Recovery Area after eight years.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has acknowledged that the effort to increase the population has been hampered by everything from illegal shootings, removals due to livestock kills and court battles over program management.
For New Mexico Agriculture Secretary Jeff Witte, the decision to withdraw came down to staffing levels, budget limitations and the program's lack of progress.
"If we get to the point where we get staffed up again and things start moving and input is requested and desired, then we'll reconsider," he said.
Some wolf supporters argue that the local partners that bowed out have done little to advance recovery of the Mexican wolves.
"This is not a great loss to wolf recovery," said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity, which has pushed for the release for more wolves into the wild. "They used their positions to organize against wolves and to try to be insiders in a process that should be more open to the public."
Murphy described all the partners as critical and said he hoped they would sign on again once the agency comes up with a new recovery plan.
"One hundred wolves in the Blue Range was the best information we had in 1998. It's 14 years later, so we've got better information now and going through this recovery planning process gets us to even a better place," he said.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

On Friday, March 30, 2012 a
federal district judge in San Fransisco ruled that the Forest Service
violated the law when it issued grazing permits on five allotments on
Mendocino and Klamath National Forests without performing the requisite
environmental review.

The Forest Service had claimed
that its issuance of these grazing permits was "categorically excluded"
from review under the nation's premier environmental law, the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), because of a legislative rider that was
tagged onto the 2006 appropriations bill. The rider had allowed the
Forest Service to categorically exclude grazing permits from NEPA if the
permit continued current grazing management, if monitoring indicated
that current grazing management was meeting management plan objectives,
and if there were no "extraordinary circumstances."

United States District Judge
Phyllis Hamilton found that the Mendocino Categorical Exclusion did not
comply with the rider because the monitoring was inadequate, and that
the Klamath Categorical Exclusion did not comply with the rider's
"extraordinary circumstances" prong because the Forest had failed to
consider impacts to designated wilderness.

Our thanks go to Warren Braunig and Lauren Rule of Advocates for the West who represented Western Watersheds Project and a coalition of other organizations in this case !